Page 2

The tower is huge, far taller than I thought from a distance. Its surface gleams with a brushed silver sheen, but there are no seams, or joints. I can’t see any windows or doors. It doesn’t look old or weather-worn. Or new. It just … is .

Alien.

Perfect.

A chill crawls down my spine, even with the sun’s blistering heat overhead. Nothing should look like this.

So perfect. So strange. So wrong .

And yet, it’s the only thing around me that offers even the possibility of shelter, if I can get inside.

The last of my strength burns out before I reach the base of the tower. I drop to my hands and knees, and drag myself the final stretch, crawling myself forward on shaking limbs. The tower's shadow cuts across the ground, and I collapse into it.

I don’t know if I’ve stopped moving because I’ve found shelter, or because I’ve given up. And, at this point, I don’t care. I reach out with one hand. If it’s a mirage, my fingers will pass through. My heart is hammering against my ribs, waiting for the disappointment.

My palm touches the tower, and it doesn’t disappear.

It’s cold to the touch. Really cold, like something that’s just been taken out of a freezer. The difference in temperature hits my overheated skin with a jolt that makes me gasp.

I lean into it, pressing my cheek to the surface, and let it soothe the sting of sunburn. A chill spreads down my face, my neck, over my shoulders, and down my arms. It’s a shock of relief after the relentless heat.

It’s real.

When I sit back, my reflection wavers on the surface, distorted and grimy. My eyes are too wide. My hair clings to my scalp, matted with sweat and sand.

You’re not okay.

The thought is loud in my head, but I can’t afford to fall apart. Not yet.

I’m shaking. Exhausted. Thirsty. Scared . And the only thing that might protect me from the sun is sealed shut. But I need to get inside somehow. I need shade. Water. I need help.

There has to be a way in. There must be people in there. Why else would there be a tower in the middle of a desert, if not for people to escape from the heat?

A dry sob catches in my throat. I’m going to die here—wherever here is—alone in this impossible place if I can’t find the door.

I force myself upright again, muscles trembling. The tower’s shadow won’t save me for long. The sun will move. The heat will keep building. And even if I survive that, night is coming. I’ve heard what deserts are like after dark. The cold can kill just as easily as the sun.

If there’s any chance of survival at all, it’s going to be in there.

I inch along the tower’s edge, one hand trailing against the surface. It’s unnaturally smooth until I reach one spot. There’s a tiny shift in the texture. I trace over it again, making sure I’m not imagining it.

I’m not. There’s a shallow groove, like a seam.

“Please,” I whisper, not even sure who I’m talking to. My voice sounds wrong to my ears. “Please let me in.”

I place my palm flat against it. Nothing happens. I’m not sure what I expected. A door to open? Someone to greet me. I rest my forehead against it, eyes burning with defeat. I can’t even cry. I have no tears left.

I’m going to die here.

I let out a shuddering breath, and then …

Ice shoots through my arm. I gasp, the sound catching halfway to a scream. It’s not pain exactly, but a sensation so intense that my whole body stiffens in response.

A faint line of light blooms beneath my hand—pale blue, humming just under the surface. It follows the shape I just traced. An outline deepens, a doorway, it glows brighter, and the surface begins to shimmer.

Light spills into the sand. The door doesn’t swing open. It vanishes. One moment it’s solid. The next, there is only blackness. And I fall forward, the wall beneath my palm no longer there to support my weight.

Cold air rushes out, dry and stale. It smells of stone, and metal, and something else. Old paper, dust, or forgotten time.

My heart hammers against my ribs. Goosebumps rise along my arms. The hair at the back of my neck lifts. I hesitate on my hands and knees at the threshold. Everything inside me screams not to move forward. But behind me only the desert and death waits.

I can’t stay out here.

“You asked for this,” I whisper, and I crawl forward.

The instant I’m inside, the world shifts again. The pressure drops, like an elevator moving too fast. My stomach twists, and the opening behind me vanishes. It doesn’t just close. It disappears .

I spin around. The wall is seamless again. There are no marks, no handle, no proof it was ever there. Panic claws its way up my throat.

“No! No, no, no. This can’t be happening.” I launch to my feet and slam both hands against the wall. “Let me out! Please, let me out.”

I scream until my voice shreds. Hit the wall until my hands ache. But it doesn’t give. My voice ricochets through the dark, off walls I can’t see, twisting into an echo that doesn’t even sound like me.

I’m trapped.

Darkness presses in, thick and heavy. It wraps around my skin, closes over my eyes. My breathing comes fast and shallow. My heart pounds like it’s trying to escape my chest.

Then everywhere lights up …

Blue, cold, bleeding from the walls. It spreads across the surface like frost on glass, crawling outward in thin, fragile lines. The room I’m in reveals itself. There are no windows, and no furniture. Just an endless wall wrapping around me to make a room that’s maybe seventy feet across.

In the center, a spiral staircase rises, twisting upward into darkness, around a column made from stone. There’s no handrail, and no sense of where it might lead.

I stare at it, willing something else to appear. A window. A trapdoor. Anything.

“Hello?”

No one answers. The tower remains still and silent, except for an odd quiet hum that seems to come from the light.

This isn’t normal. It can’t be. No one walks along a street and ends up in a desert, and then a tower.

Maybe I really am dead. Could this be the afterlife? But if I’m dead, why does everything hurt so much?

My gaze returns to the staircase. I have two options. Stay here, or go up and see where it leads .

The blue light pulses, one slow throb, and the temperature drops sharply. Cold air brushes the back of my neck.

I shiver.

Something is watching me. I can feel it as clearly as I feel the ground under my feet. I’m not alone here, and it wants me to go up.

My fingers curl into fists. I don’t want to climb that staircase. But doing nothing isn’t a choice. Standing still will kill me just as surely as the sun would have.

Up is the only choice. And so … I climb.

Each step feels like surrender. The stone under my boots has been worn smooth by time, evidence that at some time people were here.

That thought is the only thing that keeps me moving forward when my legs ache, and my muscles cramp from exhaustion.

My vision is weaving in and out, and I’m scared I might fall off the edge.

I keep one hand firmly against the middle column and move slowly, spiraling higher into shadow and cold and silence, because what else can I do?

The spiral gets tighter, the steps narrower. The light shifts from blue to violet, casting strange shapes across the curved walls that almost look like people, hands reaching toward me.

I lose count of the stairs. Hundreds? Thousands ? I’m starting to wonder if they will ever end … when suddenly, they do. I stumble forward onto a small landing and stop.

An arched opening yawns ahead, carved at the edges with delicate patterns. The violet light from below pools against the threshold, and stops there. Beyond it, there’s a room.

I step through before I can change my mind .

The air changes, becoming cooler. It’s filled with the faint scent of old paper, spice, and something sharper underneath. It reminds me of the ozone smell after a lightning storm.

The room is circular, just like the one below. But this one looks lived in. There are shelves built into the walls, fabric draped across surfaces, a plate of food, abandoned mid-meal on a large wooden table.

Everything glows faintly violet beneath a hanging shard of crystal that floats— floats —near the ceiling.

I move forward slowly, one step at a time, my eyes on the books on the shelf. My fingers brush against a spine, reassuring myself that it’s real.

And then the air shifts behind me. There isn’t a sound, but the sudden, suffocating certainty that I’m no longer alone.

I spin, heart in my throat. There’s a man standing at the far side of the chamber. Tall. Still. Dressed all in black.

I don’t know how I missed him. Maybe he wasn’t there a second ago. Maybe the shadows swallowed him whole. Maybe I walked right past him and I didn’t notice because the room already felt wrong.

But he’s there, and he’s staring at me. Relief at seeing another person gives way to panic when I meet his eyes. They’re black. Not dark brown or gray, but black . And when they meet mine, they don’t reflect the light at all. They consume it.

Every instinct I have screams that he’s dangerous. He’s not holding a weapon, and there’s no threat in his stance. But danger radiates out from him in waves.

Something in the air between us shimmers, like a ripple in a heat haze, or pressure flexing through space, and he moves, taking one step toward me. Then he stops. Abruptly. His shoulders draw taut, and his jaw clenches.

“Well.” His voice is deep, quiet. The word falls slow. Unhurried. “This is unexpected.”

I open my mouth, but before I can speak, the light in the chamber pulses again, dimming, and the temperature drops further.

His head tilts, just slightly. “You managed to open the tower door.”